The startup cost is enormous, it is really hard to create good content and there is close to zero revenue since there are few users. And the users that does exist is the techie crowd that doesn't like to pay for anything.
There are tons of ways to implement AR. They chose 'general AR', the kind of thing you see on Westworld or Black Mirror. That was a bad choice, because the tech isn't there and won't be for a long time, and it only follows that the implementation was going to be bad.
There are alternative ways to find a good v1 for AR. Take a look at this tweet storm for more of my thoughts on what that could be: https://twitter.com/nickpunt/status/1253087195159654400
As far as VR goes, it's further along. Quest is a quality stand-alone product, but VR is young and content is still lacking. Its also completely sold out, even before coronavirus. They aren't producing them in Sony/MS console numbers but its not a failure, just a stepping stone to success. Unlike the Rift or Vive, with cords hanging out of them and an appeal only to hardcore gamers, Quest is definitely on the path to mainstream, or mainstream-adjacent success.
What's the point of crappy half dim see-through display when you can just pipe the camera output to a normal VR screen?
For different definitions of "very far away". We're only talking about 15 years since we started getting proper video recording in phones, and only about 4 since the big players started focusing on software enhancements.
If there was even 1 amazing game, they'd be ok. Think halo->xbox, sonic->sega, mario->nintendo+gameboy, ... .
But apparently not. Nothing people want to buy.
I'd call it great choice. They wouldn't have been able to make nearly as much money on a purposeful, targeted device, because nobody's put in that much money for a narrow market. Worse, it would have been much easier for investors to figure that the more modest product would fail. Much better to sell moonbeams, to sell the glorious possibility of AR just like they saw on Westworld and Black Mirror.
I mean sure, the wheels had to come off eventually. After a while, you run out of fools. But most startups fail eventually, and you have to admit that 9 years is a great run for something that never worked, and probably never could have worked.
What were they showing investors and writers under NDA that caused billions of dollars and thousands of words of praise to flow?
I wonder if the NDAs still in effect? I'd love for Kevin Kelly to talk more openly about what he saw and heard.
I think VR is starting the mainstream (at least for gaming), and Coronavirus is encouraging this (as it’s making virtually all gaming platforms a boost).
Your statement was true for early VR seated games that used smooth locomotion or flight-sim-like games.
Roomscale VR games don't have motion sickness because of different locomotion methods (teleport, for instance... or they take place entirely within the room volume you have available). In fact, less motion sickness than you'd experience with a large monitor and something like a dynamic flight-based combat game. Unlike a monitor, your in-game view motion is mapped perfectly to physical head motion.
I've tried out about a dozen games, and the only time I had motion sickness at all was when I changed locomotion method from teleport to smooth in Rec Room.
Bingo. If the product works as advertised I could justify the cost just in replacing existing screens, I could have a dozen virtual terminals floating around, I could replace my large TV, etc. All with zero new content required.
The problem is it doesn't seem to work as advertised.
- VR headsets generally are similar to focusing on something further away due to the setup of the lenses. It's not literally focusing on a screen 1cm from your face.
- One direction for current VR work is dynamic focus via lens arrays.
Technies will pay for hardware like the iPhone, that gets you laid. Not AR/VR, which makes you look like a dork and makes you seasick.
FTFY.
People pay for a good experience.
Yes you can use the link, but then you need an NVidia 1650 RTX or better which means you're a high end gamer already and so were not this supposed "mass market"
PSVR is still top selling VR and while cable and setup wise it's arguably the worst it at least has quality content.
It is, but it compensates by offering good enough experience while being untethered, self-contained and quick to start up. It may not matter for teenagers with expensive gaming rigs, but it matters for working adults with families, who otherwise don't have time and space to justify a VR gaming PC build.
Meanwhile, I've been playing the Echo VR alpha on my Quest (not Link) and it's fucking great.
PCVR is an evolutionary dead end, few adults want giant PC towers in their homes anymore. Even when I demoed PCVR with amazing experiences like Lone Echo people lost interest when I told them no, it wont run on your macbook, you need a tower PC.
Yet I demoed them Beatsaber on the quest and a guy ordered one within a minute of taking the headset off, he demoed it at a family BBQ and two of his relatives bought it after.